Free Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy Page A

here when we grew up. Everyone knew that we’d get a proper roof made over this bit, and probably build windows and a door.’ Dara was pointing out the extent of the house.
    ‘But it was only a dream.’ John was gentle.
    ‘No it wasn’t.’
    ‘Yes, of course it was . . . and is. Like going to see the man in the moon. Do you remember when you were very young we used to take you out to have a look at the man in the moon before you went to bed? Now you don’t think it’s a man up there, you’re quite happy to look at the moon for itself, as something beautiful lighting up the sky over Mountfern.’
    ‘Yes but . . .’
    ‘And when you were very young altogether you and Michael used to be staring up the chimney in the kitchen, didn’t you, at Christmas time, the way Declan did last Christmas? You thought that if the chimney was too old and too awkward you wouldn’t get any presents. But they came all the same, didn’t they, and you don’t mind now where they come from?’
    ‘That’s not the same . . .’
    ‘I know it’s not the same . . . but I was just saying that the way we look at things changes as life goes on, it couldn’t always stay the same, otherwise we’d all be still living in caves with clubs or if we didn’t grow up in some kind of way wouldn’t we all be in nappies waddling round the place in playpens . . . ?’
    ‘You don’t understand . . .’ she wailed.
    ‘I don’t understand completely, but I understand a bit. Don’t I?’ She looked up at him, her face softening.
    ‘I know, Dara, it’ll always be here in some way for you, not the same way, remember the man in the moon. The moon didn’t go, and it still looks beautiful, doesn’t it, when you can see all the cattle over on the hills, and the spire of the church and the woods and . . . and Fernscourt . . .’
    ‘Will it be the same when this awful man comes, him with all his American money?’
    ‘He’s not going to be awful. He has children, we hear, you’ll love them as sure as anything.’
    ‘I won’t, I won’t.’
    ‘Well you’ll meet them anyway, and you
might
like them. Would that be reasonable?’
    ‘And we’d never be able to afford to buy it ourselves.’
    ‘No, that isn’t a thing you should think about, that’s not a possible thing, that’s like imagining a square circle, or imagining that Jaffa grew a long neck like a giraffe in the picture books. Cats don’t grow long necks, this isn’t a
real
home for you and Michael, it was a home for last summer and before that.’
    ‘And now?’ Her lip had stopped trembling.
    ‘It’s still special but it isn’t anything you start getting all het up about and start saving your pocket money to buy. That’s like the days when you used to want to know if the man in the moon had to wash his neck.’
    ‘Will you explain that to Michael, Daddy? I’m not great at explaining.’
    ‘I’m not great at it either.’
    ‘Well, you’re better than me,’ Dara said in the matter-of-fact voice which meant that he had sorted this one out anyway.
    John Ryan hadn’t written a poem or built a hen run, but he had convinced his angry little daughter that the world wasn’t going to come to an end. Now all he had to do was to get into the house without his wife knowing he had played hookey from his poetry writing.
    It was a busy night in the bar, they had hardly time for a word of any kind let alone the attack that John feared was brewing. Kate moved so quickly around the place, she had glasses swept up, and washed or refilled quicker than he would have decided whether to move the glass in the first place. Yet she didn’t give the customers the impression that they were being rushed, only that there was an urgency in getting their pint in front of them.
    Kate had decided to say nothing until everyone was gone, then she was going to force her voice to stay low, not to get high and excited, and she would not allow herself to speak too quickly until it became a gabble. She was